Wallace's play about the ultimately tragic relationship between a pair of dead-end kids evolves gradually from a slightly ponderous slice of Depression-era life to an entirely pretentious meditation on any number of ill-defined themes.

Even on Beavis and Butt-head, any fair reading is that their violent acts are committed by vacuous losers, Dead-End Kids for the '90s, and in that context violence is not "glorified" or intended to be a model for behavior.

And if they are not deflected from major crime out of fear of being sent up to "the big house,' or there isn't a friendly Irish cop or other benefactor to restrain them, the dead-end kids will become full-fledged gangsters who will fight their way out of their dead end.

A sensation when it opened in London more than a year ago, this loud and graphic tale of dead-end kids owes more than a little of its notoriety to a title that even New York's daily newspapers won't print in full.

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